Painting and drawing with pleasure Color Constellation, Art to help children grow and connect Lin es What you need to know about… Perspect ive Stroke s Chapter 3
Painting and drawing with pleasure
Color
Constellation, Art to help children grow and connect
Lines
What you need to know about…
Perspective
Strokes
Chapter 3
• Color
• Strokes
• Lines
This slideshow explains the main principles you can follow to create a work of art.
We will see:
• Perspective
Color
The painter is showing how
to blend colors:
« I encourage them with colors. To begin, they only use yellow, blue, and red. Then I teach them about the other colors and how to obtain new tones. It’s vital that these young artists lose their fear of blending colors or of making smudges. » Sylvia in Ecuador
I am a color magician
I learn to seek out my colors and to use my brush.
Note: during workshops, reference painters who take liberties in choosing their colors.
I choose my colors
I take the chance to use the colors that I choose.
I choose the colors that I like
From the
first lesson
on, you must
teach that
paper is
white so that
you can
color it. The
children will
then only
turn in their
works once
they’ve
colored
everything.
Sylvia
Colored grey with red in the clouds.
I add color to black
I can include other colors in black:
Cool black like
shadows with blue.
Warm blacklike a fire’s glow
with red.
I cover my page with color(painting on the right)
and I make my own white so none of the white of the paper
shows.
A painting is not just a bunch of objects that I fill in with
color.
I paint the entire page
I can add a bit of white to my tube to make a white that’s more warm or less warm, more reddish or yellowish (for example the snow under the setting sun or the yellow of a horse) or more or
less blue (for example snow in a shadow)
White is a color
I can choose what I want to highlight and make a choice of
light: I create a contrast between the buildings which are dark and the
countryside which is light.
Light creates contrast
Estefania painted the background of the volcano in gray. The gray is colored. There’s red in it. It goes together with the volcano’s flame.
Estefania created a gray that’s colored with complementary pairs:Red+green, Blue+orange, Yellow+purple.
These colors really pop when they’re next to each other; unless they’re of the same value (see the following page).
Complementary colors
When complementary colors are of the same value, that means that if you looked at it in black and white, it would be the same
gray, neither lighter nor darker.Colors of the same value lose their liveliness.
Here, the red and the green, complementary colors, have the same
value. They don’t enhance each other. There’s little difference between the grays
Colors with the same value
Original painting Painting in black and white
Strokes
The stroke is
the way in
which you
handle the
brush.
The hand is a precious tool. Its movement accompanies the flow of the water, the growth of the grass or trees, and the texture of the objects or animals.
Depending on what I’m trying to show, I can make longer or shorter movements with my arm, which is extended by the
brush.
Brush movements
With the brush,I can paint small flames in different colors.
Small strokes
I paint the texture of the animals in the direction of the
feathers or of the fur.
The stroke changes with the subject
Lines
Lines don’t surround the shape; they accentuate it.
I can draw over the shape that I want to highlight with a small brush. Out of all the shapes, I’ll choose those I want to highlight.
A brush or pen line is lighter and more lively than a pencil line. It doesn’t keep the same thickness throughout.
Lines which change thickness bring out the shape
A line doesn’t constrain a shape. It lets it have its freedom.
I can give some vigor back to the shape with a line
that isn’t black.
Lines can give a certain vigor
The line has to take the shape into consideration when I’m drawing. The line helps me think about what I’m drawing. I have to understand what I draw:
• I have to draw the leg under the clothes so that it connects properly to the torso.
• I draw the head under the hat so that the skull stays attached to the hat.I draw over the horse’s knees, horseshoes, and jaw.
• I draw every finger on the hand, I don’t lump them together.
A line is not the outline of a shape. Lines express volume.
Avoid markers (painting on the bottom right) because they draw a line with the same thickness throughout and it constrains the shape, a bit like wire.
Don’t surround all the shapes. Choose the ones you wish to highlight.
Black marker surrounding all the shapes doesn’t work
What you need to make a shape stand out is:
• The contrast between lights and darks (see page 12 on color values)
• To use complementary colors
Outlining a shape in black isn’t necessary
Perspective
Painting and drawing in perspective isn’t necessary.
If the child asks for it, you need to showthem the right ways.
Horizontal and vertical lines
The point at which horizontal lines converge is at eye level. Vertical lines remain vertical.
What’s in the foreground (people, rocks, houses...) is larger. You can accentuate the differences.
Far/small- Close /big